Hey guys! I'm thrilled to share The Cage with you, and I'm so grateful to T-Mobile and Wattpad for helping me share an important part of my journey as a queer person. And the best part? For every story tagged #UnlimitedPride between June 1 and June 30, Wattpad will donate $1 toward GLSEN, a nonprofit that fights for LGBTQ+ rights in schools, for a total donation of up to $10,000! I hope you'll share your stories, too! Feel free to include links in the comments so I can check them out. And don't forget to tag them #UnlimitedPride! <3

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On Fridays we had bagels. All of us lowly interns took our seats in mahogany and leather chairs around a table much too grand for us, surrounded by complete sets of legal treatises. We'd been working here for long enough by now that I no longer lived in fear of getting cream cheese on the very expensive furniture. We had grown comfortable with each other, too. The conversation turned, as it did sometimes with so many twenty-somethings in one room, to dating. One of the out lesbians--we had a few, it was that kind of place--made a joke about dating in college. "Easier than in high school," Lauren said, brushing a hand across her hair, "but still the same. They were always just pretending to be into girls. They always ended up with a man."

My heart squeezed. This again. Blood thumped in my eardrums. I thought: Am I brave enough to speak?

I had grown up believing that speaking was not allowed. My father liked to compare homosexuality to bestiality; my mother preferred to imply that it was a variant of pedophilia. But I didn't live at home anymore. I was a professional, an adult, with my own apartment, my own career, my loving, supportive husband. I had formed my own beliefs and I could say my truth out loud. I could defend those girls, Lauren's exes, who were not here to defend themselves.

"They weren't lying to you, or pretending to be gay," I said. "If they were with both women and men, they were bisexual."

Lauren looked at me, her brow creasing with concern. All of my co-workers turned to look at me, too.

"I'm bi," I said, as clarification. "I've always known that about myself. Since I was a kid. I married a man, but I'm still bi."

"Of course," she said, face pale. "I'm sorry. You're totally right."

I breathed out, just a little, though I was still shaking.

"I'm impressed you knew that about yourself so young," one of the other interns, Andrew, said. He was deeply cerebral and inquisitive but always smiling, too, always a font of empathy.

I shrugged.

"I didn't really know I was gay 'til I was in my late teens," Lauren said.

Our other out and proud interns chimed in, discussing when they had realized that they were gay or lesbian. The atmosphere in the room was kind and interested. Not hateful, not afraid. I was too astonished, too full of adrenaline, to register how happy that made me.

Afterward, Lauren found me at my desk and apologized again, though she truly didn't need to.

"I wasn't trying to shame you," I said.

She assured me that she understood. "I know bi invisibility is a thing, including in the queer community. I don't want to contribute to it."

"You're listening now," I said, with a smile. "That's what counts."

After the day I came out to my fellow interns, there followed a staggering amount of...total normality. It was just...strangely...not a big deal. It was, of course, a big deal to me, but in a queer-friendly workplace in the heart of a blue state in 2015, my queerness was accepted without any hesitation, with warmth and open-mindedness.

Then my internship ended. The 2016 election came and went. At my next workplace, I went back into the closet almost completely, with the exception of a dear coworker who was also bi. She was in a relationship with a woman instead of a man. She went to Pride while I stayed home, and neither of us was quite sure she belonged anywhere. The closet had somehow become even more isolating and claustrophobic than before, especially as I watched the new administration hand down one homophobic and transphobic ruling after another.

I know being able to stay in the closet is actually a form of privilege. Passing is safer, especially physically. I can go practically anywhere with my husband and my young child and know that I will be treated with respect. I look feminine, too, and I have a soft, high voice. Even by myself, I will be treated like a cis, straight woman -- belittled, patronized, catcalled, sure, but not targeted for being queer or gender-nonconforming. Even when I dress butch, I look like a girly-girl playing dress-up, to be teased, but probably not attacked.

It is a privilege. It is safe. I know.

But it is also a prison. If sexual orientation were only about sex, then it wouldn't matter that I'm bi, as long as I was in a monogamous relationship with a person of only one gender. But sexual orientation isn't just about sex; it's a critical piece of my identity, my soul and heart and brain. It shapes how I see the world, how I think and write and speak and exist.

For me in particular, my understanding that I was queer freed me from the tyranny of my parents' dogmatic beliefs. Because I knew I did not belong in their world, I had to imagine a new one. I have had to find a chosen family--something I am still working on. It isn't easy. I have to come out, over and over and over again. I constantly make these almost mathematical calculations--is it safe to come out to this person? is it wise?--which, again, stems from my privilege, but is also exhausting. When I befriend my fellow LGBTQ+ people--the people I often feel the safest with--I recognize that their hesitance to trust me, as someone who passes for cis and straight, is based on valid fears.

I hope I will see a new sort of world in my lifetime. A safe, welcoming world for people of all genders and orientations. I have had glimpses of it, lived in it, if briefly, and I know it can exist.

In the meantime, when I am able to do so, I will speak, and hope that someone is listening. 

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Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you think with a vote or a comment. ❤️

If you're new to my work, I write consent-driven, sex-positive romance with a hint of mystery or magic (or both!). As L. Setterby, I also write award-winning erotic romance. As both London and L., I always write across the gender and sexuality spectrums, so you'll find straight, queer, cis, and trans romances from me. I'm currently serializing Whisper, an intense erotic romance between a formerly out-and-proud bisexual rookie police officer and his closeted gay superior officer. I hope you'll check it out! 👨‍❤️‍👨

~London